City councilman calls for probe of Pasadena Health Department

After being cited by the Pasadena Health Department last week for serious code violations, Burger Continental on South Lake in Pasadena, CA sits closed, on Tuesday, September 2, 2013 as a woman passes the restaurant. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz/Pasadena Star-News)

PASADENA>> Councilman Victor Gordo said Wednesday that he plans to have the city manager and public health director explain why restaurant inspections have fallen behind and ask them whether the self-funded department needs additional resources.

Though Gordo said he doesn’t think Pasadena restaurants are unsafe and few have actually been shut down, he said having a sound system to ensure residents that they aren’t eating contaminated food is essential for Pasadena.

“That is not an area where we can afford to let our guard down for many reasons,” Gordo said. “One, there is a public safety issue, and two, we want people to be confident in the establishments they are visiting in our city.”

Gordo’s comments follow the controversial closure of popular Mediterranean restaurant Burger Continental last week for a number of serious health code violations, including cockroaches and improper food temperatures. Its last inspection was in May 2012. Other Pasadena restaurants haven’t been inspected since 2011, according to city records.

Liza Frias, who has hired to oversee food establishment inspections in June, said she is taking steps to improve the restaurant inspection process.

The first step, she said, is for staff to catch up on restaurants that have not been inspected in over a year and then ensure that each location is inspected at least once a year, and more often if it has violations.

“One of the things I have noticed is, we are definitely behind on doing some of the restaurant inspections,” Frias said. “So I’ve asked my staff to make sure every single food facility gets inspected at least once — so they are definitely focusing on that.”

Frias said she also plans to update the restaurant rating database on the department’s website to be more user friendly and transparent, implement more efficient and effective inspection processes with new technology and plans to reach out to Yelp to possibly incorporate health department scores in its restaurant review pages.

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“Within a year, I think people will see quite a dramatic change,” Frias said.

Three other establishments have been closed so far this year.

Pasadena Health Department Director Eric Walsh said his department should have inspected Burger Continental sooner, but staffing issues and an unexpected death in the department officials “into a tailspin on a lot of levels.”

“Now we have to do what we have to do,” Walsh said. “We can’t really focus on the past, that’s what a lot of people are going to want us to do, but now our job is to look at the situation today and make sure we handle things the way they need to be handled.”

Walsh said he has confidence the department “can and will” successfully manage the city’s food establishments — more than 1,000 — as it has been doing for “over 100 years.”

Pasadena is one of only a handful of cities in Southern California not overseen by the Los Angeles County Health Department.

Veronica Bauchman of L.A. County Public Health’s Restaurant Inspection Program said the county inspects restaurants between one and four times a year based on risk assessment categories. Since July 1, the department has shut down 121 food facilities. It closed 908 last year.

Although Burger Continental owner Harry Hindoyan said Tuesday that he would prefer his restaurant be inspected by an outside agency like the county, other restaurant owners have expressed reservations.

Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Paul Little said most eateries support the city having its own health department as well as the department’s policy of posting inspection reports on its website rather than letter grades in the window.

“They are very proactive so it’s rare when they close anybody down,” Little said, “but when they do, they can come back quickly and make sure conditions have improved and allow the restaurant to reopen.”